1. Truth: Just like the weather, there are so many things we can’t control. We can’t control other people’s emotions, other people’s actions, the economy, the traffic, politics, the state of the environment, our bodies, etc. Sure we can respond, we can offer support or help, we can ask for support or help, we can make some sort of impact but we aren’t in control. If it rains, how we feel about it and what we do won’t change anything. All we can do is respond — get an umbrella and accept that even so we will most likely get a little wet.

2. Truth: A shift can be the tiniest thing, so small other people might not even notice it, but it moves something. This is my first week “retired” and, as I tend to do, I had big plans for what I would accomplish, what I would work on first. Instead, I’ve spent a lot of time doing what looks like nothing — burn out is no joke. This morning, before I meditated, I fixed the blankets on the futon in my practice room. They were all wonky from the many times the dogs have come in and dug it up and I’ve halfway fixed them — Sam because it’s the way he registers complaints with management and Ringo because it’s what he does when he’s bored (he’ll bark as he does it to let you know it’s happening). It was a simple thing, but as soon as I straightened it up, I felt a shift.

3. Truth: It’s absolutely okay to do things at your own speed, to go slow, to pace yourself. If I trace back the timeline of the last decade, it’s clear that the journey to now started in earnest ten years ago. I didn’t decide that CSU wasn’t the right place for me, get suddenly clear about what to do next and do it. The clarity about next steps came in fits and starts. I lowered the bar for myself over and over again. I built the bigger picture one found object at a time. I did the necessary work to build a stable foundation little by little over the course of years.

One wish: May you move the way you move, love what you love, and sustain your stability and ease no matter what arises.

Me, Dexter and Obi

1. Grief is something you never get over, you just get used to it. Nine years ago today, Kelly died. Losing her is inextricably linked, in my heart and mind, to losing Obi and then Dexter — one big sticky sharp heavy lump of hurt. It’s been ten years since Obi and Kelly were first diagnosed, practically on the same day, and ever since then, I’ve carried around a deep sadness, a brutal tenderness, an awareness that not only is impermanence real, but it sneaks up on you when you aren’t expecting it, way before you are ready, (although, in many cases there’s no such thing as “ready,” ever). Yes, we all die eventually, but some of us go way too soon, and the hurt of that might dull but it never goes away.

2. The worst part of grief for me is the uncertainty.  I envy people who have strong beliefs about what happens after we die, who feel sure, who can comfort themselves with platitudes like, “they are in a better place” or “someday we’ll see each other again.” I don’t have this, and honestly the worst part of losing Kelly and Obi and Dexter is that I might NEVER see them again. Living with that reality is the worst part of the loss for me.

3. Grief is love unbound by form. Susan Piver is the one who I first heard say that. It’s absolutely true. We are used to having a physical target for our love, a tangible form we can reach out and touch. When suddenly our love doesn’t have that place to land, it goes wild. No longer is there a voice we can listen to, a hand we can hold, a face we can gaze at. It’s hard to know what to do. The love and even the relationship remains, but the body is gone. We love and we love and we love, but in response there’s only silence, emptiness, what feels like nothing.

One wish: That after loss, we can find something to hold on to, something that keeps us from giving up. At the very moment I wrote the line above about our love going wild, a tiny fat hummingbird hovered outside my window just to the right of my computer screen. That feels like love to me, like both magic and medicine, and for now that’s enough.